


The Awakening

by petalsandguitars



Category: Coco (2017)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon, Pre-Movie, Waking Up Dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 18:40:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13300878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petalsandguitars/pseuds/petalsandguitars
Summary: In the darkness, eyes closed and head pounding, Ernesto can't remember for the life of him how he had gotten off that stage after his latest performance of "Remember Me".





	The Awakening

**Author's Note:**

> You can find my Tumblr post for this here: https://fedecolombo.tumblr.com/post/172669426957/.
> 
> Gift to the prompt of Ernesto waking up in the Land of the Dead and what happened to the stage-hand who accidentally killed him.

Ernesto didn’t remember falling asleep.

In fact he couldn’t even remember having gone to bed or… anything before that.

Hadn’t he been performing? Certainly he must have had been.

Maybe the boys had dragged him to some cheap bar and that always ended with being in a complete stupor from the alcohol.

The pounding in his head seemed to confirm this theory.

But he really couldn’t remember leaving the theatre, nor reaching the bar, nor his bed for that matter.

He slowly opened his eyes, the light was very dim so it took him a moment to adjust to the near darkness and realise he wasn’t in his hotel room at all.

He sat up, and too quickly because the reaction he immediately felt was that he might throw up.

He took a couple quick breaths.

Then someone he couldn’t see spoke and he positively jumped off the bed, ‘Señor de la Cruz?’

‘Yes,’ he took a steadying breath, ‘yes, can you please tell me where I am?’

Because for the life of him, he could not remember leaving that stage.

The woman who had spoken stepped in the dim candle-light coming from his bedside table and his eyes went wide.

It wasn’t a woman, but a skeleton of one.

He started breathing hard and she gave him a kind yet sad smile, ‘Please don’t be alarmed, everything’s alright – ‘

No, everything was most definitely _not_ alright.

Ernesto’s first thought was that this must be a nightmare, and a horribly vivid one at that.

The woman took a step towards him and he instinctively took one backwards, almost hitting the bed with his legs, ‘No, don’t – you stay back.’

‘Please señor, I can explain – ‘ she said.

Explain? Explain what? His mind was racing and he acted on reflex, he ran for it.

There were rows and rows of beds and when he realized that most of them were occupied by sleeping skeletons, he felt the need to throw up.

 _Wake up, wake up… wake up!_ He was shouting to himself but that room seemed to have no end.

He looked back without stopping and he slammed hard into something.

He almost fell to the floor but steadied himself.

Or at least tried to.

The sound.

The sound of when he had collided with that something, whatever it was, it resonated through his mind like a scream.

It had been a rattling sound, as if something hard had hit something equally hard.

He looked up only to see another skeleton, a man, who reached out a hand in the darkness and flipped a switch.

‘Señor de la Cruz, we didn’t expect you to wake up so soon,’ he said.

But Ernesto wasn’t listening, he had instictively looked down at his hands and he would have had screamed if his voice hadn’t completely deserted him.

 _He_ was a skeleton.

‘What – ‘ he said out of breath, ‘what did you do to me? What is this place?’ he looked up at the other skeleton, a mixture of fear and rage in his eyes.

He looked at him with what was definitely compassion in his eyes, ‘You died, señor de la Cruz.’

‘I – what?’ Ernesto said in a hoarse voice, ‘How did that happen?’ he said more loudly, ‘Where am I?!’

‘This is the Land of the Dead, you’ve arrived just a few hours ago, your body required healing and that’s why you were brought here.’

‘Healing? How – ‘ he couldn’t believe he was accepting the idea that he was dead, ‘how did I die?’

‘It was a violent death, señor, maybe you should take your time before finding out – ‘

‘How did I die?’ repeated Ernesto through clenched teeth.

‘I – you,’ the man was clearly uneasy, ‘I’m sorry, I – ’

‘If you can’t bloody tell me, is there a way you can show me?’ said Ernesto, growing angrier by the second.

‘I don’t think you should see it just yet – ‘

‘Well you’re thinking wrong!’ said Ernesto and he sounded imposing despite being shorter than the other skeleton, ‘Show me how I died.’

The man headed towards the other side of the room, Ernesto hadn’t noticed but there were things resembling screens hanging from the ceiling.

When Ernesto reached him, he saw his own name on a tape before it disappeared inside the machine.

And he saw himself, very much alive, performing in that crazy theatre, what would have been his very last song in the Land of the Living.

One look at the heavy bell above himself and he knew what he was about to see.

Violent death, he had been told.

And so his bones, they had had to heal and they had in less time than these people had anticipated.

He was trying to make sense of it all but he couldn’t, no, he _didn’t_ want to believe he had died.

Then a horrible thought struck him, if he was dead and he was there… Héctor must be too.

‘Señor de la Cruz?’ the woman had reached him and the other man and had addressed him.

‘Yes?’ he said, trying to keep his cool but deciding he didn’t want to at the moment.

She gave him a kind smile, ‘I think there’s something you should see.’

‘Oh, is there? What is it?’ he said, not really trying to hide his annoyance.

‘If you would follow me,’ she said and led the way without waiting for an answer.

Ernesto took a couple quick steps to walk beside her, she led him in a hall of sorts but everyone was too busy being bent over their desks at work to pay them any attention.

When they reached the front doors and went out, Ernesto found himself in a plaza, a plaza completely full of skeletons.

He felt the need to back away but before he knew it a defeaning cheer had risen in the night’s air.

‘What – what’s going on?’ he asked the woman by his side.

‘You don’t have fans only in the Land of the Living, señor,’ she smiled to him again and this time he tentatively returned the smile.

In the next few hours, Ernesto found out that a whole mansion that resembled a castle more than anything had been built for him, awaiting his death.

He couldn’t help but feel a little annoyed that there had been people looking forward to his death but he could hardly stay mad when he was showed around his new home.

If he thought he had known glory in his life, he now felt it was little compared to what he was experiencing in death.

He had been dead for just a few days but everything and everyone seemed to be ready for him and his every need and he was soon performing for crowds he had only imagined in life.

And one night, back in his castle, he thought about Héctor and laughed quietly to himself.

‘You’ll never reach me here, old friend…’ he said, but there was a strange note in his tone, a strangled bitterness or possibly even guilt.

When he found himself dwelling on that thought, he shook it off as quickly as he could.

It was nighttime but a big crowd was still outside his castle, and who knew, he might just pop up down there in a little while, he thought to himself, smirking slightly.

He guessed he could have gotten used to this “new life”, or… only guessed? No, he was Ernesto de la Cruz and he was sure of it.


End file.
